View full sizeCourtesy PhotoSaginaw Diocese Bishop Joseph Cistone claps along with Ethiopian villagers as they welcome him into their village of Dire Dawa. Cistone visited Ethiopia and Kenya for 10 days to oversee Catholic Relief Service projects.

SAGINAW TWP. -- Saginaw Diocese Bishop Joseph Cistone met an infant boy in Ethiopia who was so malnourished, sisters at a health compound did not expect him to survive.

“I have that face in my head,” Cistone said.

The bishop returned July 7 from a 10-day trip to Ethiopia and Kenya, where he oversaw projects funded by the Catholic Relief Service. Cistone is a member of the service’s board.

Cistone said the visit to the Ethiopian villages and the capital city, Addis Ababa, along with the Kenyan capital Nairobi, was educational, moving and spiritual.

The Catholic Relief Services funds organizations to improve the lifestyle of the residents in the poor East African counties with health care, food, irrigation and sanitation, he said. Many of the residents are “suffering tremendously,” with starvation and disease.

The 11-county Saginaw Diocese has raised $2 million for the Catholic Relief Services. A quarter of the money remained in the diocese to help local residents.

The service to Africa is not missionary work, Cistone said.

“We are there because we are Catholic,” he said.

The Catholic Relief Services teaches mothers how to care for their children, take medicine to slow HIV and build terraces on the mountains to allow for farming.

“We’re not just relieving them,” Cistone said. “We’re teaching them a way of life.”

HIV and AIDs are major health issues, as are tuberculosis and mental issues. Villagers line up outside health compounds such as Missionaries for Charity locations, to get treatment.

One of the projects Cistone saw was a well that brought clean water from the top of a mountain to a village called Dire Dawa in Ethiopia. It will serve 480 families.

Only 15 percent of the 84 million Ethiopians have clean water, he said, and 40 percent have access to potable water. Women spend about eight hours each day retrieving water for their families. In Dire Dawa, all they need now is to turn on a spigot. The water is not free, but comes at a price of $12 to $13 birrs each year, which is less than one American dollar.

The residents in impoverished villages live in huts with no electricity or running water, Cistone said.

“One thought that occurred to me was these people will only go where their feet carry them,” he said.

The Catholic Relief Services also helped with an outhouse for one village. The outhouse is a hut with a hole and concrete slab with a toilet-sized opening. After using the outdoor commode, Cistone said, villagers threw ashes in the pit to minimize the smell and aid the composting process.

Once the hole is filled, the villagers move the hut and concrete slab to another area and plant a tree at the site of the former pit.

Despite the sadness of the poverty, Cistone said, the trip provided him with many nice moments.

Traveling into Dire Dawa, women and children lined the road and sang and clapped to welcome him. Cistone joined in with the clapping

He met one young girl, carrying a younger sibling on her back. Cistone wanted to take her picture because she had the “cutest, coy look.” She was fascinated to see her own photo on the camera screen.

“It was a very human moment,” Cistone said.

The enthusiasm and energy of the sisters helping the sick and playing with children is another memory Cistone said will stick with him.

“It was just a great experience personally,” Cistone said. “I want everybody to know about the good that’s being done.”